Where was the Battle? For 3rd Imperium Character Generation

[ColinD]

In Navy Character Generation you can get a promotion for heroism in battle if you roll a 12 on the Events. Same in Marines, also you have some Black OPs events. In the Army the same but can also battle Guerrillas and Rebels. You can also be assigned a peacekeeping role or be involved in a disastrous battle. In the Scouts you can cause a conflict between the Imperium and a minor world.

In Drifter you can be forcibly drafted.

If you are using the 3rd Imperium in 1105 where do you put these battles, rebel actions, peacekeeping or why would there be a draft?

I have put most of these battle Corsairs or made up a Solomani Incursion, a Zhodani clash or a short war with one of the Sword Worlds. With the 5th Frontier War we now have an event with lots of lore for these character events.

I'm curious with what you pick?

 

[Condottiere]

Outside of some rather specific circumstances, I doubt that drafting is a worthwhile activity.

If the government needs some rare specialized skill, and the potential draftee is reluctant to place them at the government's disposal.

If you need frontline infantry.

If you need coolies.

 

[Anstett]

Our campaign is based in the Reach so easy to have an occasional battle, attack, etc.
One traveller had a brush with the 4th FW.

 

[MonsterX]

The Imperium has conflicts between nobles and member planets, which might result in drafts. These can also be at war with rebels, corsair clans. A low pop planet might need a draft to get enough manpower to fight even a little war. Nobles might press people who live on their fiefs into huscarles service. Merc units with recruitment problems (the nature of which might be interesting) could Shanghai people; someone drugs your beer and you wake up in a troop transport on the way to a nasty little insurgent suppression. Rebel partisans might make it very hard for locals to not join their cause; either join one side or the other or become collateral damage. So it could be a local draft; it could even be a de facto non-official draft; doesn't have to be Imperial or even legal. Storytelling possibilities abound.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Remember that a lot of those careers can be planetary militaries as well and not just the Imperial military.

Edit - Also, 99% of the goings on of Charted Space are not covered in any book, so you can just go ahead and make up almost whatever you want anyhow.

 

[ColinD]

Outside of some rather specific circumstances, I doubt that drafting is a worthwhile activity.

If the government needs some rare specialized skill, and the potential draftee is reluctant to place them at the government's disposal.

If you need frontline infantry.

If you need coolies.

I'm wondering how to using it when it comes up in Character Generation.

 

[ColinD]

Our campaign is based in the Reach so easy to have an occasional battle, attack, etc.
One traveller had a brush with the 4th FW.

If the Fourth Frontier War was 1084, in my 1105 campaign that would be twenty-one years. So a character would have to have at least five terms.

 

[Condottiere]

I always thought it was a Hail Mary pass, when dealing with rejection.

I'm pretty sure that the interstellar Navies and Marines turn away volunteers, and the chances are that the Armies, are, as well.

So, accepting someone randomly seems unlikely.

Planetary, you couldn't say with any certainty.

 

[ColinD]

Remember that a lot of those careers can be planetary militaries as well and not just the Imperial military.

Edit - Also, 99% of the goings on of Charted Space are not covered in any book, so you can just go ahead and make up almost whatever you want anyhow.

That is a great point. Chartered Space, even with the greater detail getting produced, like: The Borderland, The Deep and the Dark, The Solomani Front, Behind the Claw, The Sword Worlds has lots of nooks and crannies that a Referee and some Travellers can make some history. I do end up making little wars that aren't really canon while working with the player to make their character.

 

[MasterGwydion]

That is a great point. Chartered Space, even with the greater detail getting produced, like: The Borderland, The Deep and the Dark, The Solomani Front, Behind the Claw, The Sword Worlds has lots of nooks and crannies that a Referee and some Travellers can make some history. I do end up making little wars that aren't really canon while working with the player to make their character.

Chartered Space! hahahahaha! I read that and choked on the drink I was drinking... lol! Best Error Ever!

 

[Terry Mixon]

Chartered Space! hahahahaha! I read that and choked on the drink I was drinking... lol! Best Error Ever!

Grandfather arrives at the Imperial Palace. "Stephron, I'd like to charter space. We'll call it Chartered Space. Let's deal."

 

[NOLATrav]

There’s some tables in T5 that give you results like “The Pursuits at Alell” or “The Assault on Efate” or what have you.

 

[To Tha Moon!]

If your PCs are in the Spinward Marches, their Careers would probably put them there as well.

An award for the Battle of Two Suns would be in a Binary system. A skirmish with the Ine Givar would be on the Spinward border with Zhodani space. And so on...

 

[swordtart]

Just look for imperial client worlds that are red or amber zones or have non-homogenous governments. Plenty of scope for brush wars, anti-piracy or interdiction there. Of course if your term happens to mesh with one of the major canon wars (e.g. fourth or fifth frontier wars) you are golden. Even in times where there is no major hostility there is still scope for "incidents" between the major powers - accidental incursions (spying), Officers exceeding their orders (or that's what the official report says) or limited operations (which might have become major ones had they not been de-escalated in time). The major wars are only the publicly acknowledged ones. There are also the proxy wars where major powers might be there as "advisors".

With the distance between the central command and the outer systems commanders have to act independently. That allows the major powers to retrospectively disavow them if they acted properly but the outcome was inconvenient. This might also explain those events where people are discharged for acting improperly but it get a chance to wriggle out of it. You have standing orders that you follow to the best of your ability, but it is all politics after the fact.

I have decided that if you apply for the services they are likely imperial. If you get drafted it will be into the colonial service. There is no practical difference, but there is a prestige element.

 

[Saladman]

In Drifter you can be forcibly drafted.

There was a period where US judges were giving young men convicted of crimes a choice between jail time or volunteering for the marines. I speculate not only out of patriotism or because they were that short on manpower, but also because if you throw them in jail they get back out, whereas if they join the marines they're away for longer and just might be someone else's problem when they get out. A little similar to the still ongoing American practice of buying homeless people who'll take it a one way bus ticket to another city.

The Drifter even might be somewhat similar. Some Administrator somewhere wants to thin the herd locally, and a recruiter has a quota even if the Imperium itself is not desperate for every warm body, and there you go.

And submitting to the draft as a player choice might represent being on the dole for too long and getting a new list of "job openings" or you lose benefits, rather than literally being pressganged off the street.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

There should be a chance that you won't be drafted and have to take drifter.

 

[ColinD]

There was a period where US judges were giving young men convicted of crimes a choice between jail time or volunteering for the marines. I speculate not only out of patriotism or because they were that short on manpower, but also because if you throw them in jail they get back out, whereas if they join the marines they're away for longer and just might be someone else's problem when they get out. A little similar to the still ongoing American practice of buying homeless people who'll take it a one way bus ticket to another city.

The Drifter even might be somewhat similar. Some Administrator somewhere wants to thin the herd locally, and a recruiter has a quota even if the Imperium itself is not desperate for every warm body, and there you go.

And submitting to the draft as a player choice might represent being on the dole for too long and getting a new list of "job openings" or you lose benefits, rather than literally being pressganged off the street.

I like that idea! Thanks

 

[swordtart]

There should be a chance that you won't be drafted and have to take drifter.

There is, you only get to be drafted once in your lifetime (unless an event takes you there) CRB p19.

Presumably one of those exceptions is if you get drafted as your event from Drifter, which makes an interesting convolution - You have already been drafted once and exempt, are forced into the life of a drifter, but before you get a chance to try to better yourself in another career, you get drafted again. Under these circumstances you can't even elect to end the character generation process as the draft takes place before you get the option to choose.

I was rolling up a batch of Naval NPCs to test a spreadsheet and I had a NPC that was drafted from his Navy Academy into the Army under event 11. I saw no prohibition from having another attempt at an Academy in his third term and succeeded in entering the Marines Academy for his third batch of basic training. Somewhat typically of his luck however, crashed and failed to graduate. His attempt to get a different career was unsuccessful and so he was forced into the Drifter career as the Draft wasn't an option. However, lucky as ever, he got drafted from there but at least this time it was the Scouts for a fourth batch of basic training. He decided to stay in this service until he was forced out after only 2 terms (event 5 - so we don't even know what happened). He had an arm full of Level-0 skills and very few level 1 and nothing above that. His mustering out benefits were really poor and he suffered a bad aging roll as well. I nicknamed him Lucky. I can imagine him in the star port bar with everyone believing he is a wanna-be as he is "inconsistent" what his service was and is wearing a mish mash of badges from 4 services with only a rank in the Scouts but no memory of his service other than basic training (which mostly must have been skiving as he only gained a single skill).

It is a shame he didn't get the full number of skills from Basic Training or he might have redeemed himself by at least being versatile.

*You can only attempt entry once per term, but there doesn't appear to be a prohibition on attempting or even entering in term 1, 2 and 3 even if successful. In theory you could by a triple graduate.

 

[Condottiere]

As Juan Rico found out, what they really need is frontline infantry.

 

[ColinD]

Just look for imperial client worlds that are red or amber zones or have non-homogenous governments. Plenty of scope for brush wars, anti-piracy or interdiction there. Of course if your term happens to mesh with one of the major canon wars (e.g. fourth or fifth frontier wars) you are golden. Even in times where there is no major hostility there is still scope for "incidents" between the major powers - accidental incursions (spying), Officers exceeding their orders (or that's what the official report says) or limited operations (which might have become major ones had they not been de-escalated in time). The major wars are only the publicly acknowledged ones. There are also the proxy wars where major powers might be there as "advisors".

With the distance between the central command and the outer systems commanders have to act independently. That allows the major powers to retrospectively disavow them if they acted properly but the outcome was inconvenient. This might also explain those events where people are discharged for acting improperly but it get a chance to wriggle out of it. You have standing orders that you follow to the best of your ability, but it is all politics after the fact.

I have decided that if you apply for the services they are likely imperial. If you get drafted it will be into the colonial service. There is no practical difference, but there is a prestige element.

There is, you only get to be drafted once in your lifetime (unless an event takes you there) CRB p19.

Presumably one of those exceptions is if you get drafted as your event from Drifter, which makes an interesting convolution - You have already been drafted once and exempt, are forced into the life of a drifter, but before you get a chance to try to better yourself in another career, you get drafted again. Under these circumstances you can't even elect to end the character generation process as the draft takes place before you get the option to choose.

I was rolling up a batch of Naval NPCs to test a spreadsheet and I had a NPC that was drafted from his Navy Academy into the Army under event 11. I saw no prohibition from having another attempt at an Academy in his third term and succeeded in entering the Marines Academy for his third batch of basic training. Somewhat typically of his luck however, crashed and failed to graduate. His attempt to get a different career was unsuccessful and so he was forced into the Drifter career as the Draft wasn't an option. However, lucky as ever, he got drafted from there but at least this time it was the Scouts for a fourth batch of basic training. He decided to stay in this service until he was forced out after only 2 terms (event 5 - so we don't even know what happened). He had an arm full of Level-0 skills and very few level 1 and nothing above that. His mustering out benefits were really poor and he suffered a bad aging roll as well. I nicknamed him Lucky. I can imagine him in the star port bar with everyone believing he is a wanna-be as he is "inconsistent" what his service was and is wearing a mish mash of badges from 4 services with only a rank in the Scouts but no memory of his service other than basic training (which mostly must have been skiving as he only gained a single skill).

It is a shame he didn't get the full number of skills from Basic Training or he might have redeemed himself by at least being versatile.

*You can only attempt entry once per term, but there doesn't appear to be a prohibition on attempting or even entering in term 1, 2 and 3 even if successful. In theory you could by a triple graduate.

The drifter event where you are drafted is what led me to ask what other Referees and Travellers do when it comes up. The Glass Cannon Network had this happen in their game Getting Drafted .